Brookhaven Lab's Reinhold Mann and Stony Brook University's Yacov Shamash Named Co-Directors of the New York Center for Computational Sciences

March 28, 2011

The New York Center for Computational Sciences (NYCCS) has announced that Reinhold Mann, Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Associate Director for Environment and Life Sciences, and Yacov Shamash, Stony Brook University’s Vice President for Economic Development and Dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, have been named co-directors of the Center.

NYCCS is a joint venture of Stony Brook University (SBU) and Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). The Center was formed in 2007 to foster high performance massively parallel computing on the whole range of science and technology topics. The Center’s advanced computing hardware includes an 18 rack IBM Blue Gene/L and a 2 rack Blue Gene/P supercomputer owned by SBU and located at BNL. The machine is named NewYorkBlue. The goals of NYCCS are advancing scientific discovery in areas related to the missions of the partner institutions, and also in areas related to the broader scientific agenda and economic development of New York State. Through the Center, researchers in biology, chemistry, physics, and medicine collaborate with applied mathematicians and computer scientists to exploit the remarkable opportunities for scientific discovery that have been enabled by modern computers. These opportunities are especially noteworthy in computational biology and nanoscience, but extend throughout science and technology and include, for example, nuclear and high energy physics, astrophysics, materials and chemical science, sustainable energy, environment, and homeland security.

In other personnel moves, former NYCCS Co-associate Director James Davenport has left Brookhaven Lab to take a position in DOE’s Office of Science as program manager in condensed matter theory. BNL’s Michael McGuigan has been named acting director of the Brookhaven Computational Science Center and will serve as the Co-associate director of NYCCS along with Jim Glimm of Stony Brook. New York Blue user support at BNL continues at an effective level, led by Nick D'Imperio, Len Slatest and Dave Stampf of the BNL Computational Science Center, with Claire Lamberti serving as administrative assistant.

Biographical information on the Center’s new co-directors is below:

Reinhold Mann

Reinhold Mann

Reinhold Mann is Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Associate Director for Environment and Life Sciences. In this position, he oversees the Laboratory’s Computational Science Center and the Biology, Medical and Environmental and Life Sciences departments, which together have 210 employees and an annual budget of $61 million. Research in the life sciences at Brookhaven includes sophisticated imaging techniques, basic studies on DNA, proteins, molecular and cellular mechanisms, and development of biomedical and environmental applications.

Dr. Mann earned an M.S. in mathematics in 1977 and a Ph.D. in biophysics in 1980, both from Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. After briefly working as a research staff member at the Fraunhofer Institute for Information and Data Processing in Karlsruhe, Germany, he came to the U.S. as a visiting scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in 1981, supported by a Feodor Lynen Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He held various scientific and management positions at ORNL, mainly in computer science and advanced engineering, until he became Director of ORNL’s Life Sciences Division in 1997.

In 2001, Dr. Mann joined DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory as Deputy Laboratory Director for Science and Technology, and, a year later, became Chief Research Officer and Associate Laboratory Director, Fundamental Science. In 2004, Dr. Mann moved back to ORNL as Associate Laboratory Director, Biological and Environmental Sciences, overseeing approximately 450 staff members and $140 million in research funds.

In 2008, Dr. Mann became Senior Vice President for Research and Development at Battelle Science and Technology Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where he was a member of a start-up team that developed the concept and plans for a renewable energy R&D laboratory. From 2007 to 2008, Dr. Mann also served as Chair of the Board of Directors for DOE’s Bioenergy Science Center, led by ORNL.

Yacov Shamash

Yacov Shamash

Dr. Shamash is Vice President for Economic Development and Dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Stony Brook University. As Vice President, a position he has held since 2000, Dr. Shamash supervises the University’s three incubators, two New York State Centers for Advanced Technology, the NYS Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology (CEWIT), the Small Business Development Center, and the workforce development programs of the Center for Emerging Technologies. The College of Engineering and Applied Sciences has over 1,500 undergraduate and 900 graduate students. In 1994 he led the effort by SUNY's engineering schools to create the highly successful state-wide SPIR program (Strategic Partnership for Industrial Resurgence). During the past ten years, working through the SPIR program, the College has partnered with more than 220 companies to assist them with more than 1,150 projects.

Dr. Shamash is a member of the Board of Directors of the Long Island Software & Technology Network (LISTnet) and the Long Island Forum for Technology (LIFT). He serves on the boards of Keytronic, American Medical Alert, Netsmart Technologies, and Invision.com. Prior to joining Stony Brook, Dr. Shamash served as Director of the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Washington State University and was responsible for the establishment of a National Science Foundation Industry/University Center for the Design of Analog/Digital Integrated Circuits. He has held faculty positions at Florida Atlantic University, the University of Pennsylvania and Tel Aviv University. A Fellow of the IEEE, he received undergraduate and graduate degrees from Imperial College of Science and Technology in London, England, and has authored more than 130 publications.

Brookhaven National Laboratory

Brookhaven National Laboratory is a multipurpose research
institution funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. Located on
Long Island, NY, Brookhaven operates large-scale facilities for
studies in physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, applied
science, and advanced technology. The Laboratory's almost 3,000
scientists, engineers, and support staff are joined each year by
more than 5,000 visiting researchers from around the world.

One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical,
biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security.
Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry
and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE's Office of Science by Brookhaven
Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by the Research Foundation for the State
University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory
facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit applied science and technology organization.